MALELANE – Oliver Bekker fired an opening 66 to delight the home fans and take a one-shot lead after day one of the Alfred Dunhill Championship on Thursday.
The event was returning to the European Tour International Schedule after taking a season off while extensive changes were made to the stunning Leopard Creek Country Club on the edge of the Kruger National Park.
High winds and fast greens made for a testing day and South African Bekker was the man to best conquer the conditions, moving to six-under and opening up a one-shot lead over Australian Dimitrios Papadatos
Frenchman Raphaël Jacquelin was then at four-under, a shot clear of a group of nine players including defending champion Brandon Stone.
Bekker – an eight-time visitor to the Qualifying School – finished in the top-10 at the Afrasia Bank Mauritius Open at Anahita last time out to seal his fourth European Tour top-10 in 67 appearances.
He finished 61st on last season's Challenge Tour Rankings, but has eight wins on the Sunshine Tour and made just a single bogey in round one.
“Definitely a great afternoon on the golf course,” he said. “The wind died a little bit on us so I’m glad to have been able to take advantage of that.
“I hit it really good today. The greens are really firm but I drove it well so I was in fairway most of the time so I could control my ball. I made one or two but, all in all, I just played solid golf today.
“I think the changes on this golf course are good for my game. I, traditionally, have not played that great over here but today I felt like it suited my game a little bit better so I’m looking forward to what this week’s got in store.”
Bekker birdied the fourth and sixth but gave the shot back on the seventh before a gain on the eighth saw him turn in 33.
A birdie on the 11th kick-started his round, as he holed a putt from the fringe on the par-three 12th, made the most of the par-five next and then hit an approach to tap-in range on the 14th to make it four in a row and hit the front.
Home favourites Darren Fichardt and Dylan Frittelli had both reached five-under before producing stumbling finishes to fall back into that large group at three-under.
An approach to tap-in range had briefly handed Stone a share of the lead at four-under after birdies on the tenth, 13th and 14th but he bogeyed the next.
An eagle from 2008 Order of Merit winner Robert Karlsson on the par-five second had also moved him to four-under, but he bogeyed the next two before almost holing from the fairway on the ninth for a closing birdie.
Scottish pair David Drysdale and Liam Johnston, Norwegian Espen Kofstad, Spaniard Pablo Larrazábal and South Korea's Hyowon Park completed the group three off the lead.